I’ve often talked about how important it is for freelancers to build their own brands. More specifically, I’ve talked about how important it is for freelancers to build brands around their skill set and thought leadership. At the end of the day, you’re more likely to get hired if you’ve made a name for yourself.
The problem is building your brand and managing clients at the same time can be tough. It’s a lot of work to maintain your own branding when you’re up to your eyeballs in client work. Never the less, you can’t give up on building your brand.
The good news is there are some ways to make building your brand easier, or at least less time-consuming. Here are some tricks I’ve been using to continue building my brand even as I get busier.
Update and republish old content.
If you’ve got a lot of content from over the years, you can update it and republish it to save yourself some time when building your brand.
The reality is that some of our content may be outdated. We also get better at our craft as time goes on and could use that to upgrade some content. Additionally, when you don’t have as much time to constantly create new content, sometimes it’s easier to just start with something you already have.
This is something I’ve been doing on my own blog lately as I’ve become busier with client work and travel. Twice a month, I’m updated and republishing an older piece of content. The rest of the month, I’m publishing new content in the form of a podcast.
Start collaborating with your peers.
As business owners and independent contractors, we’re pretty accustomed to flying solo. In fact, we may like it a little too much.
The problem is everything falls on us, and when you’re trying to juggle client work with building your brand, you’re eventually going to burn out if you try to do everything yourself.
That’s why, at some point, collaboration needs to become the name of the game. Maybe you collaborate on a webinar. Maybe you get guest bloggers you trust. Maybe you even start hiring some contractors to help you with your workload.
Automate as much as you can.
The beauty of technology and online business is that there are a ton of affordable tools to help you with building your brand. You can automate your Instagram engagement, automate your pinning on Pinterest group boards, and automate your social media posts across all channels.
Social media is a huge part of building your brand and it takes up a lot of time. Take back some of your time by automating as much of it as you can.
You can also automate email correspondence with your list. For example, I’m currently running a free financial challenge via email. It’s a six-week course where I’m nurturing leads with free content that helps them improve their personal finances and it’s all automated – from the Instagram post, to the opt-in form, to the daily emails.
Final Thoughts
While building your brand as you juggle client work can be difficult, there are ways to make it less strenuous on you. Use these tips to ensure that you’re consistently building your brand, even when your business gets busy.
